The Disciple Scroll

By Allan Rabinowitz

As the Babylonian empire threatened to conquer ancient Jerusalem, the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah exhorted and beseeched it's people to follow their moral mission. His scribe, Baruch, who recorded Jeremiah's luminous visions, felt overshadowed by the prophet’s spiritual power.
Into a scroll written for his grandson, fifty years after Jeremiah’s death, Baruch unburdens his heart about his entangled ties with the prophet, recalling a vanished world of teeming Jerusalem alleys and markets, the Temple’s splendor, the intrigue of priests, the treachery of nobles, brutal battles, desert revelation, wrenching exile and unexpected generosity and love. And he must choose, between loyalty to Jeremiah the man, and the words of Jeremiah the prophet.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Allan Rabinowitz
• Release date: Jun 22, 2013
• ISBN: 9780989022514

Allan Rabinowitz

Allan Rabinowitz is a tour, educational and hiking guide in Israel. He has published short stories in magazines and anthologies, written three travel guidebooks, and wrote a Jerusalem POST travel column for six years. He lives in Jerusalem with his family.

Book preview

Copyright © 2013 by Allan Rabinowitz

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including photo copying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher or the author.

ISBN 978-0-9890225-1-4

The Disciple Scroll

Allan Rabinowitz

Copyright Allan Rabinowitz 2013

ISBN 978-0-9890225-1-4

Smashwords Edition

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many people have supported, encouraged and helped me, in formal and informal ways, during the long, long process of creating this novel. I send deep thanks to: Michael Oren, Israeli Ambassador to the United States; Patricia Hampl, Michael Dennis Browne and M. J. Fitzgerald of the University of Minnesota; Steve Langfur; Steve Weiner; David Margolis (may his memory be a blessing); Michael Kagan; Mary Engel Potter; Cheri Cowell; Robert Ousnamer.

Deep, special thanks go to Nancy Keller and Jez Lerman.

My deepest, endless gratitude goes to my dear wife, Tzippi Moss, who has always encouraged me, and steeped my life in blessing.

CONTENTS

COPYRIGHT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

EPILOGUE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PROLOGUE

To my dear, clay-speckled Ezriel:

As the Persian army broke through the walls of Babylon, you and I danced around my little hut singing psalms of praise, and I cherish that memory. I thus witnessed with my beloved grandson this fulfillment of the prophecies of my beloved master. For the Babylonians who had hauled us from Jerusalem in tethers were now slaughtered in their boulevards, temples and gardens. Now, after fifty years of exile, we can return to our homeland.

But only fifty years? Jeremiah had prophesied seventy. But I learned long ago that only the will of the God of Israel could be more mysterious than the words of Jeremiah. Having loved and studied those words, having copied and taught them in Babylon’s synagogues, I can still recite them perfectly. That’s right, my boy: though his flesh sags, his bones ache and he can fall asleep and drool on a text, Baruch the son of Neriah can still recite the writings of his master word for word, just as he copied them from the prophet’s mouth fifty, sixty, almost seventy years ago.

But the God of Israel, as usual, has forbidden me joy without pain. For the moment we heard that the Persian emperor would allow the Jews to rebuild Jerusalem, you leapt forth to volunteer, and my heart felt ripped from this bony chest. I had enchanted you with stories of King David loping among the springs and groves of the Judean hills, and imbued you with Jeremiah’s prophecy that we would one day replant those groves. And now those very teachings and stories have helped to wrench you, Miriam and your sweet daughters away from me.

This morning I watched you, your wonderful wife and everyone else load wagons and stock provisions, bustling and shouting—we Jews can’t buy bread without shouting—and I knew that no one could dissuade you from making this journey, not even Miriam’s mother as she pleaded and bawled through her eye-paint. And I won’t even try to dissuade you, for you return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple—a Temple that you’ve only heard about from rheumy-eyed old men and which was, when I last saw it with Jeremiah, only a dung-caked mound.

But neither will you dissuade me from staying in Babylon, despite your endless urging and the cute, puckered pleas of your daughters. I would love to once again see the rosemary spilling over the terraces in the hills of my youth, but I would only hinder your progress. More importantly, I know now that I have my own journey to begin, and it will be my last. I begin it on this hot, sticky night as I sit in this dilapidated synagogue in which I saw you brought into the covenant of Israel and prayed for your mother’s departed soul on the same day. As I sit here listening to the crickets and frogs by the stagnant canal, with parchments, styluses, freshly prepared ink and a flickering oil lamp set before me, I am ready now to write out the bile and pain that I have clutched within me during fifty years of exile.

In my very first year as Jeremiah’s scribe, he declared that I would survive the sufferings of our people and land. This was a great blessing, he said, gouged into my future like my name upon a signet ring. But this blessing has been the curse of my life. Watching my loved ones, my city, my whole country crumble to dust has almost crushed me as well. With each old refugee that dies around me in Babylon, a lost kingdom fills me all the more.

The return of your group is the first shoot of the replanting that Jeremiah foresaw, and I can see that wise and wild man before me once again. I see him forcing a threatening crowd to laugh and then weep. He screams in a silent desert. He praises and blesses me, but then throws me to a mob.

I have taken out of an old, dust-covered linen wrapping the earliest existing text of Jeremiah’s writings. I had copied it myself, carried it out of Judah and eventually made my way here, while Jeremiah languished in Egypt. The text has been hacked to pieces, and on many of the scraps are dark stains. They are bloodstains.

I later copied these scraps into a new text, but I never mended those original mangled parchment leaves. I have never even unwrapped them to show to anyone—not even your mother—so great was the pain they caused me. But now, I am sending them back with you to Jerusalem, where Jeremiah’s visions first bloomed and burned. And I will tell the story attached to these bloody scraps. It might inspire you, or repel you; my own actions have so often repelled me. I’m not just the jolly old man who jiggles your daughters on his knees. Upon reading the scroll I will now write, you might be relieved that you left your grandfather far and safely behind.

But does the story attached to the scroll of Jeremiah really matter? Does any knowledge of the prophet matter beyond the power and truth of the prophetic text itself? Now, after fifty years away from Jeremiah, I say, Yes. With your impending return to Jerusalem, the story of the survival of these prophecies somehow becomes part of the prophecies themselves. How miraculous, that this link between the Holy One of Israel and this nation might be reduced to one strand, to one very flawed person, before swelling again, reaching scattered Judeans, and providing them strength and sustenance in their despair and exile.

And I desire, as well, that you and the other young Jews simply see, smell and feel the world that was torched around Jeremiah and me as we lay in prison, the world that once lived in the rubble you will build upon. Where you will see weeds, dung and broken walls, I saw throbbing markets and smelled the succulent aroma of fat from the offerings, and I still carry the wisps of images of the dear ones and scoundrels whose bones are scattered from Babylon to Judah to Egypt.

Perhaps this is why the Holy One of Israel has sustained me, despite my own yearning for death and my understanding, long resisted and much resented, that I would never gain holy insight even distantly resembling Jeremiah’s—though I craved such insights as I craved women. I have only copied and conveyed the teachings of others. But now, knowing that I must complete this task within the next week or so, as you complete your preparations, I will let my own feeble words burst forth. I will write until my head drops.

For years, in this smothering flatland, I have clung to the memory of a moss-fringed spring in the hills above our village, and on this hushed night I almost hear it gurgling from beneath a high overhang. I can see and feel myself as a boy stretched in the cool grass with friends. The Egyptians controlled our land then, and I see my older brother Seraiah strutting around us, brandishing an olive bough like a sword as he imagines singlehandedly expelling them. As the clouds drift through the glaring blue sky above him, and the water trickles down in that luscious green cleft from long ago, this is where I begin.

CHAPTER ONE

If I was King Jehoiakim I’d slash those Egyptians until they run trailing their blood, I can still hear Seraiah saying as he stabbed the olive branch into the air. Stretched on the grass by the spring with me, after our day’s labor, were two friends, Judah and Rahamim.

But that dog sniffs their butts, said Judah. After all, they killed King Josiah and placed him on that throne.

My father says we do well under them, said skinny Rahamim. He says don’t break the branch that you harvest—or something like that.

They are whores for Assyria and we are whores for them, said Seraiah.

Judah flicked a twig in the spring and smiled. They’ve made your father rich.

Seraiah kicked his foot and Judah sprang to his feet. They faced each other and glared. Before either could make another move I jumped between them and faced Seraiah.

King David, I cried, I fear the Philistines are coming. What shall we do? It was always Seraiah who led us in imagined battles in the rock-studded hills.

Seraiah slid away from the quarrel and into the game. Get up that tree and see where they are coming from.

Yes, my commander. As I climbed a nearby pine tree, I heard the others snicker, even Seraiah. I was the youngest but I was heavy, despite my farm work. My struggle in the branches amused them, but at least it prevented a fight.

The tree crown swayed as I gazed down at our isolated village. Broshiah was perched on a protruding bulge above a canyon lip, and behind it rose steep hills with wavering banks of terracing—many of them bought up by my father.

I see the Philistines climbing up in strength, King David, I shouted down. What shall we do?

Time to move on them, let’s move, move now, move. Seraiah’s talk often shot like sparks from a pounded anvil. He’d say, Come to me now, come come, or hand me that adze, bring me, hurry. He charged up the hill, graceful as an ibex, and we followed, yelling fiercely, brandishing boughs as swords and spears as we weaved among the myrtles, oaks and stunted pines. We slashed at invisible Philistines.

David, shall we cut off their foreskins as we did before? I asked.

No time, there will be more coming. Cut the whole thing off, cut, cut. We swung our boughs like scythes, harvesting unseen penises, and continued to climb the hill.

Later, as we descended, laughing, we heard guttural voices coming from the spring below us. We crept to the lip of the overhang and saw five Egyptian soldiers lounging in the grass where we had recently stretched. They were one of the patrols that now penetrated the buckled hills to deter the proliferating outlaw gangs and rebel cells, and must have followed the thin path that wound towards this spring from the main road to Jerusalem. They dangled their feet in the water, their weapons scattered on the grass. In the shallow pool stood a naked man splashing water over himself. His wet muscles shone and he had an enormous head that seemed hewn from stone, and a hanging member we gaped at, because we had never before seen one uncircumcised, despite the games we played. He splashed the other soldiers and laughed gleefully like a boy. Seraiah waved us back from the ledge, picked up a large stone in each hand and gestured for each of us to do the same.

What if they chase us? whispered Rahamim.

They’re disgusting, poisoning our pool, said Judah. Didn’t they kill King Josiah? Didn’t they cut off more noses than the Assyrians?

I don’t want mine to be next, said Rahamim.

Seraiah put his arm around Rahamim’s shoulder and said, We will be fighting them someday, and not in games. Rahamim thought a moment, then picked up two stones like the rest of us and held them up defiantly.

We wiggled up the ledge and heard the foreign voices below. Seraiah stood. Dirty Egyptians out! he shouted and hurled his stones. We stood and shouted and hurled ours, and I caught a glimpse of shocked faces. One crouched over gripping his temple and blood flowed between his fingers.

In a wide arc around the spring we dashed down the slope, whooping as we leapt the huge steps of terracing, and when we were far away we hugged and slapped each other and laughed and relived the great battle. Judah said, Oh, do I have to pee, and we all joined him and crossed our streams in a pact of the brave.

Later, as the sun lowered and men returned from the fields with their tools, and the smell of fires and cooking permeated Broshiah, the Egyptian soldiers marched in, girded in their short-skirted uniforms and leather jerkins, sullen-faced and gripping their swords in their bucklers. One had a swath of cloth wrapped around his head beneath his flat-topped leather helmet. The one with the large head led the formation, repeating a guttural call in Hebrew for all villagers to assemble in the open square.

As people edged forward he demanded that the young, stupid rebels who insulted the great Pharaoh Neco step forward. I stood between my father and brother. My brother’s arm tightened against me. Judah and Rahamim stood across the square by their fathers with their heads lowered; we were just farm boys again.

The commander repeated the order. When no one stepped forward, he drew his sword, while pulling from the inner fringe of the crowd a short, humble man, Aaron, who owned two scraggly groves; my father had bought the third with surplus silver from his oil trade with Egypt. Two soldiers pinned his arms back and forced him to his knees, as his wife wailed. Aaron’s lips moved in prayer as the commander yanked back his head by his thick black hair and laid the blade against his throat. Come forward, rebels! he ordered. Aaron’s wife clawed at the kerchief covering her head as she dropped to her knees beside her husband and held up three fingers, as if anyone could miss the three young children clinging to her robe.

I dared not look at the other boys and I knew they could not look at Seraiah and me. Seraiah clenched and unclenched his fists. I felt him shift into his first step forward. But my father’s thick, hairy arm snapped across me to grip Seraiah’s shoulder. Then he himself stepped forward. Bowing low, he introduced himself as Neriah, humble Judean servant to the magnificent Neco, and poured praise upon the great Pharaoh who graciously purchased our grain and oil, our dried fruits and balm. He has beautified our modest hills with his ivory. He spread his arms and turned slowly and smiled. His belly protruded under his robe. Even our women are more comely for being draped in your linen and decorated by your amber beads.

Seraiah muttered, It’s like drool from a mad dog.

Our Abba's drool is saving your neck, I whispered back.

Wine and figs and sweet raisin wine from my own storerooms shall be brought, Neriah continued, for these men who keep the roads open and the borders peaceful between us.

His outstretched arms moved up and down. Their master protects our villages, so with our tools we shall protect our protectors. Up and down flapped his arms, and the farmers slowly raised and lowered their hoes, adzes and pitchforks and gently tightened the circle. All praise to Neco, the lord of the Two Lands, cheered my father, with a grin on his round, cheeky face. The farmers raised their tools and cheered.

That cheer could split a goat’s belly. The Egyptian commander scanned the tight ring, the rising and falling tools that gleamed in the rays of the lowering sun, and ordered his soldiers to release Aaron, who scuttled back to the arms of his wife and children. My father lowered his arms, and thanked the Egyptians with his hands upon his heart.

The Egyptian commander nodded, sheathed his blade and in a somber voice thanked us for our generosity, and for the bounty of your blessed village. By the lord of the Two Lands himself, I swear I will return with more of his loyal subjects, to taste such bounty fully.

The ring of farmers parted as the soldiers backed away, still gripping their sheathed swords. As the soldiers marched toward the main road, villagers smothered my father with embraces and blessings. Aaron kissed his neck. But my father hunched his shoulders, pursed his lips and pushed through the crowd toward our courtyard gate. Rahamim, Judah and I smiled meekly at each other in relief. Seraiah had disappeared.

At our evening meal, my stepmother Alina asked about Seraiah. Mind your business, woman, answered my father as he spooned his gruel, which he insisted on eating almost every evening. He did not look at or address me. My two stepsisters, Maya and Rachel, served us and cleaned up like jittery mice. Neriah had married Alina suddenly, about two years after my mother died in a final gut-ripping coughing fit. Alina had been recently widowed, and her dead husband had no brother to marry her in his place. But he had land, and no sons. Now, only a narrow crescent of tilled valley divided Alina’s holdings from my father’s original estate.

After the meal, my father sat in a corner by the oil lamp and plucked at his lyre, which he often did in the evenings. It was made of buffed cypress wood, and looked small when his thick shoulders and arms encircled it.

Late that night, Seraiah climbed into the window of our small chamber, which was above the courtyard stable. He groaned as if aching, and reeked of sweat. Now what girl left you like that? I said from my mat.

He stiffened in the darkness and then said, Yes, she plucked me, all right, but with no heart in it.

Like a pomegranate, I said. He ignored my remark and stretched himself on the straw mat across from mine with a groan.

Did Abba ask for me? he asked through the darkness.

He said nothing.

He groveled enough today.

Abba risked himself to protect us.

I would have taken it.

You would have brayed like a she-ass in rut.

And if I did? I would only hate them more. But Abba gets fat off their scraps and pours our wine down their gullets. I felt hurt for my father, and did not answer. Anyway, Seraiah added, I will be leaving soon. For Jerusalem.

Jerusalem? Why leave your father’s lands? And who will manage our lands?

You will.

But Abba trusts only you. When will you go?

Not yet. Go to sleep, little Baruchi. He used my childhood name to gall me, and it worked.

On three straight nights, Seraiah crawled in late through the window, groaning and bruised. On the fourth night, I followed. As I dropped to the ground, I spotted him in the moon’s silvery sheen, climbing the terraced hillside behind our villa. He clambered up beyond the olive groves, straight for the spring and then beyond. In a small glade, Seraiah greeted four young men, all older than him, from other villages.

Crouched behind a boulder, I watched them practice, by torchlight, close combat with wooden staffs, swords and spears. Real knives flashed in the moonlight. The young men lunged, parried thrusts, forced each other to the ground and mimicked the slitting of throats. Such a sight Seraiah was, gliding through the glade, his hawk’s profile silhouetted, his bare chest heaving, his sweaty muscles gleaming in the moonlight.

At last I backed away and returned home. When Seraiah climbed into our chamber I asked, What are you training for?

Go to sleep, Baruchi, he replied. He stretched slowly on his matting. We’ve got a full day’s work tomorrow.

Why are you doing this?

We’ll heave them off, Baruchi.

The Egyptians?

Whoever shits on our soil.

You’ll lose.

Our grandfathers stopped the Assyrians. We’ll win. He rolled away from me and I heard, muffled, But you won’t be there. Your fear is like shit in your blood.

CHAPTER TWO

Neriah now closely watched Seraiah, added to his tasks and often mentioned the responsibility of an oldest son to his family’s lands. And ours had expanded greatly in the four years since Egypt had seized control of Judah and Israel. Neriah was the first in Broshiah to turn its location between Jerusalem (in the hills) and the Egyptian trade routes (in the lowlands) to his advantage, and he kept his bulk firmly planted in that position.

Neriah walked Seraiah and me through the groves and fields that Seraiah would inherit as the first born. He threw his thick arm around my brother’s shoulder and sought his advice: Was there a plot he ought to try to acquire? A new crop worth trying? A spot to dig a new well? When Seraiah noted the repairs needed on some outbuildings, my father suggested that I, rather than our long-time indentured servant Penuel, handle the job. Look at him, he needs more work.

In anger I hauled stones, dug ditches, and shoveled, plastered and pounded. But I was rapidly changing. While I remained bulky, my gut hardened. I also spent many evenings keeping and reviewing my father’s records, no matter how exhausted I was, because I wrote and handled numbers well.

Baruch never misses a word or number, my father boasted to the Egyptian merchants who climbed from the coastal trade routes to our home. They brought my father gifts—onyx bowls, brass bells for the girls, and delicate silver earrings which my father examined for graven images before handing them to Alina. She never wore them in the village until my father insisted. He examined Egyptian ivory, papyrus and fine, dyed linen. The Egyptians, in turn, sampled several grades of wine and oil. I drew up the agreement for Egyptian goods to be delivered to us before the upcoming Passover festival in the month of Nissan.

Perhaps that was why Neriah took me with him and Seraiah to the Passover festival in Jerusalem, for the first time in several years. Eagerness filled me as, before dawn, we hitched two of our strongest oxen to the two-wheeled cart, which was packed with clothes, bedding, food, a tent, the Egyptian merchandise and gleanings from the first barley harvest for offerings. A pink-eyed lamb tied in the cart, destined for the Temple altar, bleated pitifully. As we rolled out of the courtyard, Alina, Maya and Rachel, wrapped in shawls against the chill, muttered farewell blessings, as did Penuel. Seraiah and I walked alongside the cart, which Neriah drove along the rutted track toward the main route that climbed the hills to Jerusalem. Stones glowed with moisture after recent rains that had soaked the hills. Grasses spilled over the terraces, sprinkled with cyclamens, daisies, and red anemones. Rosemary and sage spiced the breeze. The main path filled with others climbing from villages in the lower hills and the lowlands. Strangers greeted each other and broke into song, accompanied by jingling timbrels. We at last approached Jerusalem as the sun, sinking behind us, tinted its western ramparts with a copper glow. As we crossed the upper, shallow reaches of the Ben Hinnom Valley, the road thickened with people and carts, flocks, mules and oxen, all surging toward the northwest corner of the city. Peddlers, beggars, seers, yammering soothsayers, residents with rooms, rooftops or corners to let, musicians plucking lutes and lyres all lined the paths, trying to squeeze silver from the throng. I learned then that in Jerusalem, one man's pilgrimage is another man's profit.

I saw a hefty, mangy man with a huge forked beard weaving through the campsites, and just knew he was headed for us. He approached my father with his eyes bulging and said, Your sons guard their father well. He spoke hoarsely. But the vines in your heart shall strive with each other and wither.

My father stopped and grabbed the man’s soiled tunic at the shoulder. What’s that you hiss?

He’s a leech from some filthy crack, said Seraiah, stiff-arming the man. My father slapped Seraiah’s arm. I choose who I listen to. The other man scanned my father’s well-made embroidered robe and tunic. He spoke again of two vines striving. Neriah listened, then reached into his pouch and withdrew a nugget of silver.

What are you doing, Father? Seraiah asked. Neriah dropped the silver into the stranger’s palm. He stared at it.

I did not request this, he said.

Then give it back, give it, said Seraiah.

The man bowed slightly. If your father wishes, I’ll return it.

His father makes his own decisions, said Neriah. Now go.

But the stranger first recited a long blessing calling for the God of Israel to bless this family and bring us strong wives, many children and fat flocks and crops.

Enough, it wasn’t that much silver, my father at last cut in. The man flinched, lowered his head and rushed toward the Benjamin Gate.

There are more prophets here than whores, Seraiah muttered to me, and they lie and charge more.

A layer of smoke from cooking fires hung above the jumble of tents and flimsy booths when we pulled in, north of the northern wall of the city. The land was flatter here, and the wall thicker than the other walls, which loomed over deep valleys. The smell of burning dung and olive wood mingled with the aroma of baking bread, parched grain, and even roasting meat. Livestock, camels and donkeys were tethered to tents and wagons. As my father and I unpacked our gear, he looked around and asked, Now where has that Seraiah slipped off to? We looked at each other. My father, in silence, turned again to the wagon.

When Seraiah returned, my father asked him where he had been. Seraiah shrugged and smiled. I had to start exploring Jerusalem again.

In the morning, Seraiah was gone again, as I knew he would be. I followed my father from gate to gate, through crowded, stinking markets, carrying his samples of Egyptian goods. Dust rose as people pushed past the booths displaying fruit, olives, spices, dyed garments, wines, stylish pottery, new and used iron tools. Baskets and bundles perched on women’s heads bobbed above the crowd. My father stopped often to listen to small groups of musicians. Taletellers in patched robes gathered children around them, and one did juggling tricks with painted clay balls while making up poems about the people around him. Dirty women sat cross-legged in the dirt with fly-covered babies in their arms, moaning and begging. One man revealed pus-oozing sores where his toes should have been. Another hobbled around on one leg and a staff. Children tugged at our tunics, bawling. An old man squatted by several pairs of unmatched sandals and stared morosely at people’s feet, as if coveting a pair that matched.

With smiling jowls, my father presented his goods to merchants. When one, while pouring my father a bowl of date wine, challenged him. Who needs you, I’ll buy from the Egyptians myself.

Yes, do that, said Neriah. Egyptian merchants don’t like bringing their caravans into these hills. Too wild, with thieves and rebels. I’ll welcome you in my home. He started offering advice on where to hire camels, what greetings to use, and the importance of a trustworthy replacement to run his stall in his absence. At last the merchant cut him off and purchased papyrus sheets. An excellent choice, my father exclaimed. Baruch, copy down this good man’s order.

God has spilled blessings down upon you, friend, said the merchant as he refilled my father’s bowl. You have a fine son, hefty and skilled.

My father tossed back the wine. Two sons. The other one is feeling his muscles bulge, if you know what I mean.

Let’s hope he doesn’t let one muscle bulge too much.

And that one will have lots of chances to work it, my father laughed.

When Seraiah returned that evening, Neriah offered no rebuke, but only chuckled and said, Just be careful where you work your muscles; I don’t want you to lose one. Seraiah gave me a puzzled look. I shrugged and, as the younger son, continued preparing our meal of lentils, olives, cheese and bread that Alina had packed.

On our second day, Seraiah again vanished. Neriah said nothing. Dragging our lamb, I followed him through the terraced maze of alleys and public stairways, working along the western slope of Jerusalem’s central valley, toward the Temple, the House of the Lord. Royal guardsmen channeled the gathering crowd to an approach from the south, climbing upslope to the rounded peak where the Temple stood. Everyone around us carried offerings of early barley, flax bundles or lambs. Egyptian and Judean guards watched us ascend a long stone path which passed under a wide balcony of the king’s palace.

Cheering abruptly burst out. People pointed toward the balustrade as King Jehoiakim and his entourage appeared there. The king, in a deep blue tunic embroidered in white, leaned over the stone railing and waved at his cheering subjects. His thin gold diadem glinted in the sunlight. A short black beard framed his fleshy face. Long live King Jehoiakim, son of King Josiah! someone shouted, and the crowd repeated that chant, too.

Egyptian soldiers, with bright plumage atop their flat helmets, flanked the royal guardsmen who bordered the king’s entourage. I told my father that Seraiah said the king’s real name was Eliakim. Pharaoh gave him this name when they kicked out his brother and placed him on the throne.

That is true, mused my father. But what difference does that make?

Seraiah says that makes him a gelded bull in an Egyptian yoke.

Seraiah is a young fool. This is the seed of David. Look around, boy. This dynasty and this city were saved from the Assyrians and will not be forsaken by the Lord of Israel. His loud cheer joined others, and I, too, whooped as the thick crowd climbed toward the Temple, which King Solomon had built centuries earlier.

Suddenly we heard shouts, screams and curses behind and above us. There was scuffling on the royal portico. The king was whisked inside and the balcony entry blocked by guards. The crowd below screamed and wailed. Nervous guards urged and ordered us to hurry towards the holy sanctuary. People murmured concerned prayers for their king as they flocked up the outer steps into the courtyard of the house of the Lord. The Levites in their white gowns stood on the outer steps and sang psalms of praise in